How I Work

My Little Haven

   I promised to tell you how I work and why I make what I do. Well I'm lucky enough to have built myself a good size barn studio here at home, not a palace yet big enough to cope with two full time beadmakers, myself and my wife Yvonne. I've been working here for five years now and god only knows how many hours I have spent in that time sitting over my flame, all I know is it's been great place to work and I hope it will be long into the future. I'm lucky in that I work by a large window that faces out over the pond and has the bird feeding stations just feet from it, so there is always something to watch when I'm grabbing a quick cuppa.
   My kiln is positioned just to the right of me which is ideal as my beads are placed into the kiln straight from the flame, I can't for the life of me think why some beadmakers let their beads cool in fire blankets or vermic only to later batch kiln then, but thats a story for another time. To the left of me I have what can only be described as a jungle of glass jars crammed full of glass rods, many many pots of frit and enamels together with a host of other materials like shards, silver foil, silver wire etc etc. Behind me the whole back wall is covered by a wooden rack which is full of hundreds of glass rods, colours and makes of many kinds all labeled in bundles waiting their turn.
   In front of me is my teacher, my flame, I use a Nortel Plus torch with a Minor Top Torch which runs on oxygen and propane, I've used this set up for around four years with no problems. I use a bench safety shield rather than safety glasses as I wear spectacles so this makes life so much easier plus it was more convenient when I was teaching.
   I think that's about it for set up, of course I have other tools on my bench all of which help manipulate the hot glass and of course there is my radio, I couldn't last a day without talksport or radio Cambridgeshire.
   As I mentioned I  make my beads and place them into the kiln, this keeps the beads at the same temperature until the end of the working day when after turning off the kiln they all cool very slowly which helps stop any cracking, this is called annealing. I'm happy working this way and other the years I have had very few beads crack, those that did were caused by mixing different glasses together some of which didn't match.
   Now as for what I make, well that's a good question. We all have our own way of living, talking and thinking well it's the same with making beads. To start we all make standard beads just like as a child we learn to talk, often with dots or other easy design but after a few months you find there is a path you feel you want to follow, with some its flower beads or hollow beads or even sculptured beads, well with me it was natural looking beads, not too many bright colours and yes I know there are bright colours in nature but I liked the more natural browns, greens, greys and more autumn colours and I guess if I'm honest I still do.
   As I mentioned in my first blog it was a while before I realised that I could learn more by letting the flame and glass work together rather than try to steer them in a certain direction, it soon became clear that some of the best looking beads were those which were not planned, they were beads that were produced without any design in mind, sometimes I would just pick up a few rod ends and melt them together maybe adding some silver leaf or frit, just being carefree but was I happy with the results the following morning.
   I soon became the student rather than the teacher, learning so much by working this way, the flame was showing me which colours worked better with others, it was telling me how silver can produce the most amazing reactions when used over certain colours and most of all I learned how every colour in the spectrum could work with any other, there are no rules and for years I had thought the opposite. In the last few years I can honestly say I have learnt more from just watching the way my flame plays with colours than I ever learnt following books or youtube clips, I now feel free to just play with the glass and every morning I open my kiln door I just know there will be a gem or two in there.
   Today I'm making focal beads which are by far the best beads to use these techniques on, they of course need to be unique and this way of working can only produce unique beads, this doesn't mean I can't use some techniques for making a set of beads, of course I can I just have to make sure I do everything the same on each bead just like you would when applying dots say, each bead will still be unique but the set will match, like I said it's all about learning and to date I've found no better way.